At the end of last year, MHS, PHS, and PMS decided to take part in the No Place for Hate initiative, in hopes of receiving the No Place for Hate designation.
No Place for Hate’s parent organization the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) works to fight discrimination and hate in all of its forms, and No Place for Hate carries on the work of the ADL on school campuses, according to the ADL’s website.
“It is an initiative to promote safe, inclusive school spaces that encourage non-violent communication and anti-bullying,” MHS principal Shannon Fierro said. “[These are] a lot of the values that resonate with the work we’ve been doing at Millennium and across [PUSD].”
According to their website, No Place for Hate awards schools with a designation and banner if they meet the requirements: a school assessment, formation of a No Place for Hate committee, adoption of the Resolution of Respect, participation in an anti-bias or anti-bullying training, and implementation of three school-wide events aimed at anti-bias or anti-bullying.
“[Receiving] this designation will help the [broader] community look inside and think about, ‘Am I supporting this mission or am I not?’” said No Place for Hate coordinator and PMS math teacher Karen Bloom.
The ADL started out as an organization working to achieve justice for Jewish Americans. However, since their founding in 1910, the ADL has expanded its mission to encompass all oppressed groups.
According to the ADL’s website, “[Our mission is] to stop the defamation of the Jewish people, and to secure justice and fair treatment to all.”
After Title IX coordinator Cheryl Wozniak heard about the ADL’s work, and the district administration began meeting with the No Place for Hate regional coordinator Jacqueline Regev at the end of the 2018 school year, Fierro said.
“[Principal] Adam Littlefield and myself, said that we wanted to take this on and move forward with this partnership at our respective school sites,” Fierro said.
The organization has resources like anti-bias education, study guides, lesson plans, and activities for teachers to learn from, in addition to professional development that is free for schools. Up to 30 students from MHS and PHS respectively will participate in a full day workshop curriculum, Fierro said.
“I think that [it] will be a really powerful experience for 60 kids across both high schools, who come from leadership in the fields of identity work, diversity, and student leadership,” Fierro said.
Club leaders, student activists, and ASB members will be invited to participate, and staff will be there to support and facilitate the training, Fierro said.
“All together we’ll learn about becoming allies, strategies, and what privilege and anti-bias work [are],” Fierro said. “We can bring that back to our respective school sites, but also continue the collaboration between both of our schools.”
Additionally, PMS will have a student learning program called Becoming an Ally, Bloom said.
“There will be activities that our students who do the training will want to create, and our team of teachers will support them in creating it,” Bloom said.
PMS already has many programs that hold the same values as No Place for Hate, like Safe Space Club, Know Your Classmates Day, No One Eats Alone Day, Safe School Ambassadors, and Peer Mediators. However, there is still more work to be done, Bloom said.
“We can always get better at being a place of kindness, anti-bullying, and respect for differences,” Bloom said. “We’ve made a lot of improvements over the past seven years that I’ve been here, but I think you can always do more.
